God versus the people
In his personal attack on David Seymour, Simon O'Connor has not hesitated to distort the facts.
He says Seymour arms himself "with a handful of polls that assure him of just how right he thinks he is on this issue, he has decided Parliament no longer needs to think for itself".
This is a complete negation of the truth. For more than 20 years, public opinion polls have shown a majority in favour of voluntary euthanasia.
To give one example, a 1995 One News-Colmar Brunton poll found that 62 percent of respondents were in favour of voluntary euthanasia, with 27 per cent opposed and 10 per cent undecided.
In March 2018, a Horizon Research Poll found that 65 per cent of the sample supported assisted dying and 14 per cent opposed.
O'Connor maintains that submissions by the public to parliamentary select committee have shown an overwhelming antipathy to assisted dying.
But answering questions in an opinion poll takes only a few minutes; composing and writing a submission to a parliamentary select committee can take several hours, and making an oral submission involves a journey to Wellington.
Only people who feel intensely are likely to make such a submission. Such a self-selected group is not a random sample, thus breaching a fundamental requirement for validity.
It's no wonder that O'Connor and the religious opposition to assisted dying don't want a referendum, as it would almost certainly give the result they don't want.
O'Connor says of Seymour: "Yesterday he was the most outspoken libertarian in New Zealand, the champion of individual rights and liberties. Today, he is so wedded to populism he makes Donald Trump look like an elitist."
Yes, Seymour is indeed a champion of individual rights and liberties. What O'Connor conveniently ignores is that this clearly includes the rights of the individual to avoid unnecessary suffering.
MARTIN HANSON, Nelson
More pie in sky
The recently returned Father Laisney has, in his "Immortal Souls" letter (May 10), lost his proper sense of place - the homily belonged in "Thought for Today".
The dictionary definition of soul goes: "#1 the spiritual or immaterial part of a human being, often regarded as immortal. #2the moral or emotional or intellectual nature of a person."
Laisney is betting on the religious interpretation of #1; definition #2 rests on present neuro-scientific interpretation of brain scanning.
The issue of this priestly epistle is biblical proof of the "real" existence of the "immortal" soul but, as always with this kind of Bible-babble, there is no proof. There is simply assertion piled upon assertion with no supporting evidence.
The single salient point to be taken from the Biblical extracts is they were written by men within the the first century AD whose expectation was for a swift "second coming" and whose hope was for an imminent "eternity".
All of this has become part of the project, now 2000 years old, of selling the product of "eternal life" which is as immaterial as the individual "eternal soul" - and ever more fragile as the laity has become more literate, more capable of reason and thus more suspicious of the traditional seats of authority and power.
Knowledge, reason and science will continue to provide a better cause for hope for the future of humankind than one that - defended by the Father Laisneys of the world, standing on the crumbling ramparts of the past - offers only pie in the sky when you die.
RUSS HAY, Whanganui
We're not alone
I agree with the title but not the content of Dave Hill's opinion piece - "Odds we are not alone keep falling"; May 2.
The figures astronomers use to suggest that if there are so many planets in so-called habitable zones, there must be some with life, are just numbers.
For life to be possible on a planet, it must "orbit a very stable star, have a nearly circular orbit in the 'just right' Goldilocks zone, be a terrestrial planet made of rare heavy elements, contain liquid water, possess a large moon to circulate water in its oceans, be protected from impacts by large outer planets, have a protective atmosphere with the right chemistry, be shielded from solar wind by a strong magnetic field, etc.
"Many secular astronomers seem to think that if we find a planet with liquid water, then it will also contain life. But the recipe for life is more complicated than 'just add water'."
- Keaton Halley.
The good news is we are never alone, the Almighty Creator of the Universe is always present with anyone who seeks Him.
MANDY DONNE-LEE, Aramoho
Delaying the inevitable
Our council - poor as we are - has decided to subsidise repairing facades on our old buildings, slowing the advancement of our town.
People want new, so will shift to the top end, and the bottom end will become a slum to be demolished then renewed, same that has happened for centuries. It is wasting money delaying the inevitable.
It would be better to help with demolition - make it cheaper. We want young people in our town, yet we seem to concentrate on what the oldies want.
It would be nice to know how Graeme Young and David Bennett voted - they did not want to spend money putting a roof on the velodrome for the young people.
G R SCOWN, Whanganui
